Gallienus found he had a different cup in his hand. The world was getting a little off-set. Chosroes was still talking. Gallienus smiled benignly at the Armenian. His thoughts remained among the Hyperboreans.
Zeno would hate it beyond the north winds. The Greek was not without his own capabilities. He had been more than conscientious as a Studiis. His knowledge of Greek literature, especially the earlier writers, was admirable. When invited to attend the consilium, at first he had spoken out cogently and with frankness on whatever issues were discussed. There was nothing wrong with that: Rome was not an oriental despotism like Armenia. Measured freedom of speech was to be allowed. But then Zeno had gone further. He had begun to criticize Gallienus’s military appointments. Repeatedly, at inapposite moments, the Greek had inveighed against what he called barrack-room upstarts. He had dared to announce that the mos maiorum demanded that high commands should be reserved for senators. The presumption of claiming to know the ways of the ancestors better than his emperor had been bad enough, but also it had raised questions of motive and integrity. Zeno was neither senator nor soldier. Although the frumentarii detailed to investigate had unearthed no evidence, Gallienus was convinced some disaffected faction of senators — the gods knew there were enough of them — had bribed the pompous graeculus. Zeno had been dismissed, and got out of the way as part of a diplomatic mission that crossed the lower Ister. That the embassy had failed could not be held against him. There had never been a realistic likelihood of turning the Tervingi, Gepidae, Carpi and Taifali against each other or their allies. But Gallienus was not ready to let the impudent little Greek return. Zeno had been particularly virulent against Ballista. He would watch the northerner like a hawk. That was good. Ballista was not above suspicion. Once their bias was filtered, Zeno’s reports might prove useful. Gallienus wondered if vanity and prejudice would blind his sometime a Studiis to who was really leading the expedition. Still, if the graeculus hampered the mission, Ballista carried something from Gallienus that would make the position clear.
Loud applause brought Gallienus back from the frigid north. There was no relief about the bride now; nothing but naked anxiety. With her husband, she was brought before Gallienus. Her eyes kept flicking to the bed in the atrium. No doubt, her thoughts ran to the other one, the one inside to which not her juno but herself would be taken. It was time for the epithalamium. Gallienus handed his drink to a servant. Holding the hands of the bridal pair, he recited the verse he had composed:
‘Come now, my children, grow heated together in deep-seated passion,
Never, indeed, may the doves outdo your billings and cooings,
Never the ivy your arms, or the clinging sea-shells your kisses.’
The rest slipped his mind. Another couple of lines; something about playing … watching … the lamps.
When the wedding guests realized there was no more to come, they voiced their appreciation.
Gallienus watched the girl being led away. She was beautiful and very young. It was fortunate for her the ways of the ancestors had changed and the bedding was no longer public. She looked terrified as it was. Still, at twenty-six, Licinius’s son had a certain experience. He was not an unkind man. Out of concern for her timidity, her hymen would remain intact tonight. Of course, he would make up for his forbearance by buggering her, and tomorrow he would fully enjoy his new wife. Such consideration was to be admired.
XIII
The Borysthenes River
The entrance to the Borysthenes lay between the Temple of Demeter on Cape Hippolaus and the grove of Hecate on Hylaea. The connotations could hardly have been less auspicious. The awful curse of Pythonissa, priestess of Hecate, terrifying, triple-headed goddess of the dark, had occupied Ballista’s thoughts. Kill his sons. Kill all his family, all those he loves. Demeter had lost her child, snatched away to the underworld.
It was impossible to tell where the river began and the great estuary it formed with the Hypanis ended. From the height of the village, innumerable islets, reed banks and mudflats had spread out, creating a green labyrinth of channels and creeks, the open water often betrayed by only the glint of the sun. Down in the boats, hemmed in by feathery walls of reeds, visibility had seldom been further than a javelin cast.
To minimize the chance of any encounter with the once-servile pirates infecting Hylaea, the Olbian guide had kept as much as possible to the bank on their left. He had had no time to talk. The silt shifted the shallows day on day. Each year, the river presented a fresh map of dangers and dead ends. Alert as a hunting dog, he had peered over the bow, calling directions to the helmsman in the stern. Ballista had sat behind him, silent with bad thoughts. Kill all his family, all those he loves.
The first day had been calm. In the creeks, the current was imperceptible. But in their winding course, they made few miles. They had spent that night in another village. Mean dwellings packed behind ditches and ramparts, only the absence of a temple to Demeter distinguished it from the one at Cape Hippolaus.
In the next four days they paddled against a headwind as well as the more noticeable flow of the river. Progress was slow. They passed more villages. These, they avoided. The cracked walls and smoke-blackened roof beams jagged against the sky marked them as places of tragedy and ill omen. Some of the burning was recent enough to leave its reek on the air. Three nights they camped on muddy islands, and once on a stinking peninsula full of cormorants and gulls.
Despite the threats of barbarians and pirates, they were not alone on the river. Fisherfolk in dugout canoes slunk off into the shallowest backwaters at their approach. Four small trading vessels travelling in convoy and several rafts of logs being poled down to the Euxine had no option but to approach. They did so cautiously. The crews of the boats were armed and looked prepared to fight, even against the odds. Those on the timber were few, near naked, and ready for flight. A short swim and they would be hidden among the thick vegetation of the banks. As the distance narrowed, Greek voices were not enough — whatever their origins, the runaway slaves on Hylaea would know Greek — but the names of the great men of Olbia reassured. Health and great joy. The voyagers exchanged news. The gods be praised, no one had encountered anything worse than the mundane hazards of riverine travel. May the gods hold their hands over you. Both sides parted a little heartened, but somehow more isolated on the river after the meeting.
The sixth day out, the guide took them over towards the bank on their right. The only channel of any reasonableness was there. The slaves from Hylaea had never been seen this far upriver. A hard day, and tonight once again they could sleep easy behind the walls of a strong village, where the inhabitants would keep watch.
Practice had improved the paddling of the Romans. They were nearly as fluent as the Olbians. The wind had backed to the south-west. The sun shone, and the four boats sped along.
There were redshanks and kingfishers. High above, Ballista saw a pair of sea eagles. Some way up the river, from beneath a weeping willow, a heron took wing, its long legs trailing. Ballista’s mood had lightened a little, but still ran on his family and death. Not his wife and sons, but his family in the north. ‘Some are no longer there for me to see,’ he had said to Castricius. His half-brothers Froda and Eadwulf would not be there. Froda was dead, and Eadwulf eating the bitter bread of exile with the name Evil-Child.